Fast Iteration :: Redesigning a Living Web Site

Just came across this article on User Interface Engineering (UIE) discussing Netflix's approach to redesigning their web site: it's constant. They are constantly designing and building new things for Netflix.com, but they remove it when it doesn't work.

"We make a lot of this stuff up as we go along," the lead designer at Netflix said in the UIE article. They found that about 90% of what they develop doesn't work. And by doesn't work they mean users don't like it or respond well to it.

Fast iteration is the freedom for a design team to continuously redesign and tweak features of the web site. It means that a company doesn't need to keep such a grand "when we redesign" list, because many of the changes can be made along the way, and removed if the research shows that users are not liking it. It also means, however, that the company will need an ongoing budget to fuel such enhancements.

The article mentioned how some web site designers don't like fast iteration because it diminishes the lengthly design and development phase, where hours are poured into perfecting a design, only to have it under-perform. With fast iteration, those hours can be trimmed, and added to if the feature shows signs of promise.

Most of the fun of the web for me, personally, is that it is changeable. It is not print where a book is printed and the colors work or they don't, or the glue from the binding holds or it doesn't. To embrace your website as a living and breathing thing, something that can get dusty and just needs touch-ups to maintain its healthy glow, you might just save some money and have a fabulous website.

Read "The Freedom of Fast Iterations: How Netfliz Designs a Winning Web Site" for the liberating details >

How to Share Word Documents in Google

If you are editing a Word or Excel document with someone else, and if you have a bazillion versions of it saved into various folders on your computer, and if this is driving you nuts, you are a candidate for Google's shared docuement tool. All you need is an Internet hook up, a gmail account, and you're in!

Here's how you do it once you have a gmail account:

Go to gmail.com

Login with your username and password.

Once in your account, look to the top Left.

Click on Documents

You may need to activate this feature. Just say Yes to everything.

If you want to upload a new document, above the main blue bar, there is a text link for Upload. Click it.

Hit Browse and find the document you want to share.

Click Upload File when you’ve selected it.

Once you are at the main screen, you’ll see your document. Select it by clicking on the little box to the left, and look in the middle column. You should see a link for Share Now. Click it.

On the next screen, make sure “as collaborators” is is selected and enter the email (gmail) address of folks you want to share with. Gmail accounts are the only ones who can get access to these documents. And unless you share them like this with people you invite, they are private.

Your collaborator should get an email to their gmail account that you’ve shared a document with them. When your invitees click on Documents from their gmail account, it should be there.

1,2,3 go!

Give it a try and let Comment below if you have any questions!

!! TaDa !!

I edited a Blogger template to handle my own design elements! Thank you Blogger! I learned a little today about more difference between Blogger and WordPress and will post on it later. What I learned actually made me propelled me to give Blogger one last try in the custom-design arena. So you could say that I learned a lot. More on that to come.